Changes in the Wind
by killjoyjules
Summary: Naruto has left the village to train with Jiraya for two and a half years. In the meantime Sakura completes her own training in ninjutsu, both combative and medical alike, herbology, acupuncture and taijustu with Lady Tsunade. But Sakura doesn't spend all her time training and studying.


The setting sun bathed Konoha in shades of orange. The light and shadows danced on the faces of the Hokages; past and present. Sakura sighed at the beautiful, although not unfamiliar sight. Standing on the roof of the Hokage's Mansion had become an almost daily routine for her. She leaned on the old fence that encircled the edge of the roof. The red paint was rusting and peeling from the many seasons it had seen. Some parts of the fence had obvious dents and scorch marks from many a petty shinobi dispute while some small chunks were missing altogether.

Sakura let out another sigh, this one longer than the first. It had been a long day of training for her. It had already been six months since Naruto had left with Jiraya. For those six months Tsunade had not let a single day go to waste. The few days Sakura did have to herself she spent training and studying. Tsunade had successfully beaten into Sakura a special type of work ethic and drive that would not allow itself to ever run out.

This day was no different than her usual. Between running errands for the hokage, training both her physical strength, medical and combative ninjutsu in addition to doing missions here and there and working shifts at the hospital she had very little free time from the time she woke up at to the time she got home late in the evening. As soon as Tsunade had taken Sakura under her wing she had her start doing hospital shifts in order to get as much exposure to a medical environment as possible. Sakura was currently taking care of various nursing duties. She had just barely started using medical ninjutsu on herself and was not prepared to start using it on other human beings.

She had a long night ahead of her. This evening while she was finishing up the patient charts, Tsunade had dropped by the hospital and put two giant tomes on her desk. The first, a book at least six inches thick, had a maroon cover with gold lettering. The pages were yellow and worn from years of use. It was an in depth guide to herbal medicine, acupuncture and medical theory. This was a very old and rare book, dating from even before the First Shinobi War. There were many different secret herbal formulas and treatment techniques collected from the various clans before they decided to form together and become shinobi villages. The book was a treasure, to say the least, and Tsunade wanted her to be done with her first read-through by the end of the week. The second book was last year's edition of an anatomy textbook. That would be a breeze. Sakura had been going through anatomy books since before she asked Tsunade to be her shishou.

 _She's crazy? What magic does she think I run off for her to not allow me to sleep like this?_ Sakura thought to herself. She reached into her kunai bag and took a food pill out of a small pouch sewn into the side of the bag. She popped the pill into her mouth. It was crunchy and had a pleasant salty taste. This one was a Nori based one. The dense, hard and nutrient packed food pills were one of the few things that were sustaining her nowadays. She was often too busy to sit down and have a meal, let alone make one herself.

Sakura took a deep breath, focused some chakra into her quads, hamstrings, calves and feet. She wound up her body and in one quick leap was on a nearby shingled roof top. She bounded from rooftop to rooftop.

At first when she was still a genin and had just started traveling by rooftop it had been difficult. Some of the roofs were weaker than others, some shingles weren't attached right. It was easy to apply just enough pressure to crack a shingle or make a loud thump, resulting in the resident of the building hollering out their window at her and, if they were especially crazy, throwing some object after her.

Now Sakura had very little problem navigating the old metal and wooden rooftops. She knew exactly when to circulate just the right amount of chakra to lessen the impact to silently push off the rooftop or how much to circulate to make her step light enough to not leave any mark behind that she had ever been there, no matter how old and ragged the building was.

Within ten minutes she had made it to her home. She still lived with her parents, Kizashi and Mebuki Haruno. They wouldn't be happy with her coming home so late. She gracefully landed on the balustrade right outside her window. Quietly she pushed the glass window open and slipped inside.

Her room was small and compact. There was just enough room in the middle to be able to do her exercise regimen. Right under the window was her neat twin bed. Folded on top of it was her pink comforter and pillow. Right behind her bed, nuzzled between the bed and the wall, was a caramel colored bookshelf, already stocked full of medical and ninjustu books. In the center of the room she had a chabudai, a short legged traditional japanese table. Across the room, next to her door she had a two dressers, one small and one large, and a house plant.

She walked across the room. On the smaller dresser was the old team 7 picture, the one with Kakashi, Naruto glaring at an annoyed Sasuke, and an overly excited 13 year old Sakura. She picked it up and looked at it for a few moments. That picture always made her a bit nostalgic and sad. It was the only picture she had of all of them together and of Sasuke. It served as a bitter-sweet reminder of the quiet and cold Sasuke, and further motivated her to get stronger in order to get him back to the village and out of harm's way. Sakura set down the picture with a sad sign.

As she withdrew the crimson tome from her bag she sat down on a bright pink cushion at the chabudai and got to work. It was going to be a long night…


End file.
